-PTI   The Union cabinet today approved the recommendations of the Majithia wage boards allowing an increase in salaries and allowances that will benefit over 40,000 newspaper employees, including journalists. The revised wage will be applicable with effect from July 1, 2010, while other allowances, such as those for transport, house rent and hardship, shall be effective from the date of notification in the gazette, labour minister Mallikarjun Kharge said. The revised pay scale...

Five days after Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi accused Mayawati government in UP of mega-scale corruption in the centrally sponsored schemes, union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has shot off a letter to UP chief minister Mayawati citing a huge scam in the MNREGA scheme in the state. According to sources, Jairam has specifically mentioned seven districts Balrampur, Gonda, Mahoba, Sonbhadra, Sant Kabir Nagar and Mirzapur where central funds have...

At a time that land in urban centres, especially in the big metropolitan cities, is at a premium, a Working Group of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has suggested that, as far as possible, slum dwellers should be resettled at the spot where they are currently living, rather than displacing them, so that they continue to remain close to their places of work. NAC sources said the Working...

The political advantage enjoyed by the Congress for bringing the rural job scheme is under threat with five of its states underpaying workers, a revelation that has prompted the leadership against challenging a court order seeking parity between MGNREGA wages and minimum wages in a state.  The Karnataka high court recently ruled that wages under MGNREGA should at least be equal to the notified farm wages. The ruling would result in...

-The Business Standard Yes, it will help combat the acute shortage of farm labour, but it goes against the Act’s core principles. Devinder Sharma  Food and agricultural policy analyst The crisis in agriculture has worsened and it is directly proportionate to the spread of MNREGA Isn’t it strange? The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA), which was primarily designed as a radical and novel response to combat rural poverty, is actually hitting the very...